We all modify and personalize our web browsers, right? Most of us add some sort of tool bar or search bar…Yahoo, Google, MSN or another, right? Why aren’t we satisfied? Why are we always looking for something that can do more? Well, the answer might be that we intuitively know that a searchbar can and should do more. So, where do we turn? The answer might be in the new, appropriately titled Advanced Search Bar.
Read on for my thoughts. 
Advanced Search Technologies, Inc. founded in 1999, is a privately held Nevada based corporation, with offices in New Jersey and Connecticut. The company creates easy to use search websites and Internet toolbars for millions of users worldwide. The main focus is to aggregate quality content for end users and make the Internet easier to use with it’s products. Advanced Search Technologies, Inc. flagship toolbar products consistently receives top ratings and recommendations by respected third-party media and product reviews. Now, they have released ‘Advanced Search Bar’ as a free add on to your browser.
The official line on what this searchbar can do is on the company website and reads: The Advanced Searchbar is a FREE award winning toolbar that enables you to search over 100 search engines and is loaded with features that make searching and browsing the Internet easier than ever. The Advanced Searchbar has more features than the Google, Yahoo and MSN toolbars combined. No other toolbar has as many features.
Setup:
The Search bar was a snap to install. The setup program looked for programs on my hard drive and then generated a huge list of options and links to programs that I could check off to appear on the tool bar.
This is definitely the most configurable tool bar I have ever seen. The options are too numerous to list here – but they include options such as: Completing the typing of words typed in the search bar to keeping your search history in a drop down menu and many more. The buttons you can install range from adult site blockers to personal, to classified, sports,health, video, web blogs, TV listings and more.
Then, you customize your news buttons, system tools buttons, mail buttons and more. You really need to see this to believe it.
Ease of Use:
Once the tool bar was customized – it was incredibly easy to use the Advanced Search Bar. It truly takes pretty much everything I would want to do and places it right in the tool bar of the browser. Wanna defrag? No need to go to start, programs….you get the idea. Want to play a quick Flash game? Just go up to the tool bar. Want to check your stock quotes or your Fantasy baseball team? Yup, just go up to the toolbar.
Look and feel:
This is an incredibly intuitive, easy to use and powerful program. Graphically it looks great – not too flashy but it definitely adds some character to the IE toolbar. I found that once I had it installed for a while, I very naturally would go to the Advanced Search bar to check my email, my web mail, go to news feeds and search for just about anything just about anywhere.
Overall Conclusions:
If you use Internet Explorer, this is a must have for you. It is incredibly powerful, easy to use and time saving. Never before have I been able to control so many aspects of my PC from one place. The only downfall of this program, and it is a major downfall for me, is that there is NO FIREFOX SUPPORT. Please, guys – make this for the millions of us who use Firefox on a daily basis. I am almost tempted to switch back to IE just to use this tool.
Overall Grade: A-
Pros: Amazingly powerful, easy to use, highly customizeable
Cons: No Firefox support
Advanced Searchbar is free and can be found at www.advancedsearchbar.com
Written by Gary